Hidden Hunter: it's time to take a swing by the lake

The Advertiser

12 hours ago

LAKE Macquarie is full of wonderful hidden places.
The latest I've just stumbled across is the popular 'swing bridge' concealed in suburbia on Dora Creek, behind the Avondale Campus, at Cooranbong.
But more about that later.
My interest in such sites began several decades ago after searching for, and finding, some unusual concrete igloos from World War II in secluded bushland, high on a hill above Catherine Hill Bay.
They were the remains of the once top-secret radar station 208, which acted as a shield, or early warning system, for the largest seaplane base in the southern hemisphere at Rathmines, south of Toronto
The Catherine Hill Bay ridgeline site also once hid twin timber towers, reportedly standing about 45 metres, holding the actual radar installation. Beneath it, from memory, one of the two Nissen-style curved concrete huts, or igloos, housed a generator, while the other held the female radar operators from early 1943.
The Bay radar station only came into existence after a Japanese enemy submarine shelled the sleeping city of Newcastle early one morning in June 1942.
After the war, the timber towers were demolished and recycled into houses, while the solid concrete structures were simply stripped of anything valuable and abandoned. The last time I saw them, years ago, someone had managed to drive a small, presumably stolen car, up a steep, rough track high above the beach, drive it inside one structure, jam it sideways, then set it ablaze.
Hiking up to the hilltop site had been memorable, as had the sight of the blackened interior with a car inside one igloo.
Over the years, visits to other hidden Lake Macquarie sites have never been as memorable, but always interesting.
For example, there was once the odd sight of a light aircraft, minus its wings, sandwiched into a Swansea coffee shop as a novelty. I had been recycled after it had crash-landed elsewhere.
Or the Aboriginal legend on a plaque once at Reid's Mistake (Swansea Heads) telling the story of Malangbula. Two upright rocks here represented two women transformed into stone after an altercation with a native warrior. The silent sentinels were to forever guard the ocean entrance to Lake Macquarie to protect the lake from fierce sea monsters trying to enter.
Going now towards the western side of the lake and passing Speers Point, we soon come to the Five Islands Road crossing Cockle Creek. Here, just to the north on the opposite shore, parallel to the northern railway line, is Racecourse Road.
Only the road beside the creek now reminds us of the story once told around here. In 1927, intrepid aviators Charles Kingsford Smith (after whom Sydney's airport was named) and Charles Ulm made an emergency landing here on the then-existing racecourse after suffering engine trouble. The sight of their aircraft, temporarily left there, went down in lake folklore.
Then further on, not far as the crow flies from the Fennell Bay bridge, lies a now-submerged petrified pine forest in the shallows, or at least what's left of it.
Called Kurrur Kurran, it is reputed to be more than 250 million years old, but there are only petrified stumps left now on the silty lake floor. Much of the ancient, petrified wood was souvenired, pilfered, up to 60 years ago. Some of this prehistoric forest (once 500 trees) ended up as pieces of a household fence in nearby Blackalls Park. The water site is generally regarded as the biggest and best preserved in situ of the Permian period in NSW.
On the edge of Toronto itself, we come to relics of the now lost Toronto-to-Fassifern 3 kilometre railway (now the Greenway Track) and the site of the once popular Stoney Creek Swimming Club started in the 1930s.
Moving again, but west, going along Awaba Road before going south on Freemans Drive heading to Cooranbong. Here, opposite the Avondale College entrance, is another gem of a place - the Elephant Shop with its unusual wares. But a little before that, motorists might be diverted down a side street to the South Sea Island Museum with missionary artefacts, including drums and a full-size former islander war canoe.
Back on the road, we come to my latest find. It's Cooranbong's suspension or historic 'swing bridge' (since 1934) off Freemans Drive. Today, the wobbly bridge is a local landmark, but maybe for many of us it's still a hidden place, until you get precise directions on how to find it.
Weekender was alerted to the site recently by Valentine author and bushwalker Greg Powell, who pointed out the nearby, flat 2.4-kilometre Sandy Creek Walk loop on part of the Avondale Estate for those who want to immerse themselves in nature.
The Cooranbong swing bridge is at the old Weet-Bix factory on Dora Creek. The bouncy walk over Dora Creek originally provided handy access for workers of the Sanitarium health food factory. Without the bridge, people had to either row or swim across the creek or face a long walk around.
At the back of Avondale College, the bridge over Dora Creek can be a little hard to find initially. Access is via a cul-de-sac after leaving Freemans Drive at Victory Street, just before a bridge under the M1.
The first swing bridge was designed and built in 1934 by Harry Tempest, a Sanitarium division manager. The bridge was said to be built to help teacher Oleta Leech, the wife of a Sanitarium scientist. Living south of the creek, she was terrified of deep water and local boats were often 'borrowed' by persons unknown.
Initially, the college faculty said using the bridge was out of bounds for its indoor students. This rule was relaxed in 1965. A tall eucalypt on the college side of the waterway also became known as the 'Billy-can tree'. Customers of the college dairy would hang their milk cans (to be filled up later) on nails hammered into the tree trunk.
The original swing bridge partially collapsed in the 1980s after surviving multiple floods. In 2006, it was feared the repaired bridge might be closed, but it has survived, a testimony to its workmanship, stout timbers and galvanised steel supports.
But while walking over the old, swaying suspension bridge can add a touch of adventure to any journey, since 2023, a wider, stronger, more stable, flood-free concrete bridge opened alongside, providing a more stress-free crossing.
LAKE Macquarie is full of wonderful hidden places.
The latest I've just stumbled across is the popular 'swing bridge' concealed in suburbia on Dora Creek, behind the Avondale Campus, at Cooranbong.
But more about that later.
My interest in such sites began several decades ago after searching for, and finding, some unusual concrete igloos from World War II in secluded bushland, high on a hill above Catherine Hill Bay.
They were the remains of the once top-secret radar station 208, which acted as a shield, or early warning system, for the largest seaplane base in the southern hemisphere at Rathmines, south of Toronto
The Catherine Hill Bay ridgeline site also once hid twin timber towers, reportedly standing about 45 metres, holding the actual radar installation. Beneath it, from memory, one of the two Nissen-style curved concrete huts, or igloos, housed a generator, while the other held the female radar operators from early 1943.
The Bay radar station only came into existence after a Japanese enemy submarine shelled the sleeping city of Newcastle early one morning in June 1942.
After the war, the timber towers were demolished and recycled into houses, while the solid concrete structures were simply stripped of anything valuable and abandoned. The last time I saw them, years ago, someone had managed to drive a small, presumably stolen car, up a steep, rough track high above the beach, drive it inside one structure, jam it sideways, then set it ablaze.
Hiking up to the hilltop site had been memorable, as had the sight of the blackened interior with a car inside one igloo.
Over the years, visits to other hidden Lake Macquarie sites have never been as memorable, but always interesting.
For example, there was once the odd sight of a light aircraft, minus its wings, sandwiched into a Swansea coffee shop as a novelty. I had been recycled after it had crash-landed elsewhere.
Or the Aboriginal legend on a plaque once at Reid's Mistake (Swansea Heads) telling the story of Malangbula. Two upright rocks here represented two women transformed into stone after an altercation with a native warrior. The silent sentinels were to forever guard the ocean entrance to Lake Macquarie to protect the lake from fierce sea monsters trying to enter.
Going now towards the western side of the lake and passing Speers Point, we soon come to the Five Islands Road crossing Cockle Creek. Here, just to the north on the opposite shore, parallel to the northern railway line, is Racecourse Road.
Only the road beside the creek now reminds us of the story once told around here. In 1927, intrepid aviators Charles Kingsford Smith (after whom Sydney's airport was named) and Charles Ulm made an emergency landing here on the then-existing racecourse after suffering engine trouble. The sight of their aircraft, temporarily left there, went down in lake folklore.
Then further on, not far as the crow flies from the Fennell Bay bridge, lies a now-submerged petrified pine forest in the shallows, or at least what's left of it.
Called Kurrur Kurran, it is reputed to be more than 250 million years old, but there are only petrified stumps left now on the silty lake floor. Much of the ancient, petrified wood was souvenired, pilfered, up to 60 years ago. Some of this prehistoric forest (once 500 trees) ended up as pieces of a household fence in nearby Blackalls Park. The water site is generally regarded as the biggest and best preserved in situ of the Permian period in NSW.
On the edge of Toronto itself, we come to relics of the now lost Toronto-to-Fassifern 3 kilometre railway (now the Greenway Track) and the site of the once popular Stoney Creek Swimming Club started in the 1930s.
Moving again, but west, going along Awaba Road before going south on Freemans Drive heading to Cooranbong. Here, opposite the Avondale College entrance, is another gem of a place - the Elephant Shop with its unusual wares. But a little before that, motorists might be diverted down a side street to the South Sea Island Museum with missionary artefacts, including drums and a full-size former islander war canoe.
Back on the road, we come to my latest find. It's Cooranbong's suspension or historic 'swing bridge' (since 1934) off Freemans Drive. Today, the wobbly bridge is a local landmark, but maybe for many of us it's still a hidden place, until you get precise directions on how to find it.
Weekender was alerted to the site recently by Valentine author and bushwalker Greg Powell, who pointed out the nearby, flat 2.4-kilometre Sandy Creek Walk loop on part of the Avondale Estate for those who want to immerse themselves in nature.
The Cooranbong swing bridge is at the old Weet-Bix factory on Dora Creek. The bouncy walk over Dora Creek originally provided handy access for workers of the Sanitarium health food factory. Without the bridge, people had to either row or swim across the creek or face a long walk around.
At the back of Avondale College, the bridge over Dora Creek can be a little hard to find initially. Access is via a cul-de-sac after leaving Freemans Drive at Victory Street, just before a bridge under the M1.
The first swing bridge was designed and built in 1934 by Harry Tempest, a Sanitarium division manager. The bridge was said to be built to help teacher Oleta Leech, the wife of a Sanitarium scientist. Living south of the creek, she was terrified of deep water and local boats were often 'borrowed' by persons unknown.
Initially, the college faculty said using the bridge was out of bounds for its indoor students. This rule was relaxed in 1965. A tall eucalypt on the college side of the waterway also became known as the 'Billy-can tree'. Customers of the college dairy would hang their milk cans (to be filled up later) on nails hammered into the tree trunk.
The original swing bridge partially collapsed in the 1980s after surviving multiple floods. In 2006, it was feared the repaired bridge might be closed, but it has survived, a testimony to its workmanship, stout timbers and galvanised steel supports.
But while walking over the old, swaying suspension bridge can add a touch of adventure to any journey, since 2023, a wider, stronger, more stable, flood-free concrete bridge opened alongside, providing a more stress-free crossing.
LAKE Macquarie is full of wonderful hidden places.
The latest I've just stumbled across is the popular 'swing bridge' concealed in suburbia on Dora Creek, behind the Avondale Campus, at Cooranbong.
But more about that later.
My interest in such sites began several decades ago after searching for, and finding, some unusual concrete igloos from World War II in secluded bushland, high on a hill above Catherine Hill Bay.
They were the remains of the once top-secret radar station 208, which acted as a shield, or early warning system, for the largest seaplane base in the southern hemisphere at Rathmines, south of Toronto
The Catherine Hill Bay ridgeline site also once hid twin timber towers, reportedly standing about 45 metres, holding the actual radar installation. Beneath it, from memory, one of the two Nissen-style curved concrete huts, or igloos, housed a generator, while the other held the female radar operators from early 1943.
The Bay radar station only came into existence after a Japanese enemy submarine shelled the sleeping city of Newcastle early one morning in June 1942.
After the war, the timber towers were demolished and recycled into houses, while the solid concrete structures were simply stripped of anything valuable and abandoned. The last time I saw them, years ago, someone had managed to drive a small, presumably stolen car, up a steep, rough track high above the beach, drive it inside one structure, jam it sideways, then set it ablaze.
Hiking up to the hilltop site had been memorable, as had the sight of the blackened interior with a car inside one igloo.
Over the years, visits to other hidden Lake Macquarie sites have never been as memorable, but always interesting.
For example, there was once the odd sight of a light aircraft, minus its wings, sandwiched into a Swansea coffee shop as a novelty. I had been recycled after it had crash-landed elsewhere.
Or the Aboriginal legend on a plaque once at Reid's Mistake (Swansea Heads) telling the story of Malangbula. Two upright rocks here represented two women transformed into stone after an altercation with a native warrior. The silent sentinels were to forever guard the ocean entrance to Lake Macquarie to protect the lake from fierce sea monsters trying to enter.
Going now towards the western side of the lake and passing Speers Point, we soon come to the Five Islands Road crossing Cockle Creek. Here, just to the north on the opposite shore, parallel to the northern railway line, is Racecourse Road.
Only the road beside the creek now reminds us of the story once told around here. In 1927, intrepid aviators Charles Kingsford Smith (after whom Sydney's airport was named) and Charles Ulm made an emergency landing here on the then-existing racecourse after suffering engine trouble. The sight of their aircraft, temporarily left there, went down in lake folklore.
Then further on, not far as the crow flies from the Fennell Bay bridge, lies a now-submerged petrified pine forest in the shallows, or at least what's left of it.
Called Kurrur Kurran, it is reputed to be more than 250 million years old, but there are only petrified stumps left now on the silty lake floor. Much of the ancient, petrified wood was souvenired, pilfered, up to 60 years ago. Some of this prehistoric forest (once 500 trees) ended up as pieces of a household fence in nearby Blackalls Park. The water site is generally regarded as the biggest and best preserved in situ of the Permian period in NSW.
On the edge of Toronto itself, we come to relics of the now lost Toronto-to-Fassifern 3 kilometre railway (now the Greenway Track) and the site of the once popular Stoney Creek Swimming Club started in the 1930s.
Moving again, but west, going along Awaba Road before going south on Freemans Drive heading to Cooranbong. Here, opposite the Avondale College entrance, is another gem of a place - the Elephant Shop with its unusual wares. But a little before that, motorists might be diverted down a side street to the South Sea Island Museum with missionary artefacts, including drums and a full-size former islander war canoe.
Back on the road, we come to my latest find. It's Cooranbong's suspension or historic 'swing bridge' (since 1934) off Freemans Drive. Today, the wobbly bridge is a local landmark, but maybe for many of us it's still a hidden place, until you get precise directions on how to find it.
Weekender was alerted to the site recently by Valentine author and bushwalker Greg Powell, who pointed out the nearby, flat 2.4-kilometre Sandy Creek Walk loop on part of the Avondale Estate for those who want to immerse themselves in nature.
The Cooranbong swing bridge is at the old Weet-Bix factory on Dora Creek. The bouncy walk over Dora Creek originally provided handy access for workers of the Sanitarium health food factory. Without the bridge, people had to either row or swim across the creek or face a long walk around.
At the back of Avondale College, the bridge over Dora Creek can be a little hard to find initially. Access is via a cul-de-sac after leaving Freemans Drive at Victory Street, just before a bridge under the M1.
The first swing bridge was designed and built in 1934 by Harry Tempest, a Sanitarium division manager. The bridge was said to be built to help teacher Oleta Leech, the wife of a Sanitarium scientist. Living south of the creek, she was terrified of deep water and local boats were often 'borrowed' by persons unknown.
Initially, the college faculty said using the bridge was out of bounds for its indoor students. This rule was relaxed in 1965. A tall eucalypt on the college side of the waterway also became known as the 'Billy-can tree'. Customers of the college dairy would hang their milk cans (to be filled up later) on nails hammered into the tree trunk.
The original swing bridge partially collapsed in the 1980s after surviving multiple floods. In 2006, it was feared the repaired bridge might be closed, but it has survived, a testimony to its workmanship, stout timbers and galvanised steel supports.
But while walking over the old, swaying suspension bridge can add a touch of adventure to any journey, since 2023, a wider, stronger, more stable, flood-free concrete bridge opened alongside, providing a more stress-free crossing.
LAKE Macquarie is full of wonderful hidden places.
The latest I've just stumbled across is the popular 'swing bridge' concealed in suburbia on Dora Creek, behind the Avondale Campus, at Cooranbong.
But more about that later.
My interest in such sites began several decades ago after searching for, and finding, some unusual concrete igloos from World War II in secluded bushland, high on a hill above Catherine Hill Bay.
They were the remains of the once top-secret radar station 208, which acted as a shield, or early warning system, for the largest seaplane base in the southern hemisphere at Rathmines, south of Toronto
The Catherine Hill Bay ridgeline site also once hid twin timber towers, reportedly standing about 45 metres, holding the actual radar installation. Beneath it, from memory, one of the two Nissen-style curved concrete huts, or igloos, housed a generator, while the other held the female radar operators from early 1943.
The Bay radar station only came into existence after a Japanese enemy submarine shelled the sleeping city of Newcastle early one morning in June 1942.
After the war, the timber towers were demolished and recycled into houses, while the solid concrete structures were simply stripped of anything valuable and abandoned. The last time I saw them, years ago, someone had managed to drive a small, presumably stolen car, up a steep, rough track high above the beach, drive it inside one structure, jam it sideways, then set it ablaze.
Hiking up to the hilltop site had been memorable, as had the sight of the blackened interior with a car inside one igloo.
Over the years, visits to other hidden Lake Macquarie sites have never been as memorable, but always interesting.
For example, there was once the odd sight of a light aircraft, minus its wings, sandwiched into a Swansea coffee shop as a novelty. I had been recycled after it had crash-landed elsewhere.
Or the Aboriginal legend on a plaque once at Reid's Mistake (Swansea Heads) telling the story of Malangbula. Two upright rocks here represented two women transformed into stone after an altercation with a native warrior. The silent sentinels were to forever guard the ocean entrance to Lake Macquarie to protect the lake from fierce sea monsters trying to enter.
Going now towards the western side of the lake and passing Speers Point, we soon come to the Five Islands Road crossing Cockle Creek. Here, just to the north on the opposite shore, parallel to the northern railway line, is Racecourse Road.
Only the road beside the creek now reminds us of the story once told around here. In 1927, intrepid aviators Charles Kingsford Smith (after whom Sydney's airport was named) and Charles Ulm made an emergency landing here on the then-existing racecourse after suffering engine trouble. The sight of their aircraft, temporarily left there, went down in lake folklore.
Then further on, not far as the crow flies from the Fennell Bay bridge, lies a now-submerged petrified pine forest in the shallows, or at least what's left of it.
Called Kurrur Kurran, it is reputed to be more than 250 million years old, but there are only petrified stumps left now on the silty lake floor. Much of the ancient, petrified wood was souvenired, pilfered, up to 60 years ago. Some of this prehistoric forest (once 500 trees) ended up as pieces of a household fence in nearby Blackalls Park. The water site is generally regarded as the biggest and best preserved in situ of the Permian period in NSW.
On the edge of Toronto itself, we come to relics of the now lost Toronto-to-Fassifern 3 kilometre railway (now the Greenway Track) and the site of the once popular Stoney Creek Swimming Club started in the 1930s.
Moving again, but west, going along Awaba Road before going south on Freemans Drive heading to Cooranbong. Here, opposite the Avondale College entrance, is another gem of a place - the Elephant Shop with its unusual wares. But a little before that, motorists might be diverted down a side street to the South Sea Island Museum with missionary artefacts, including drums and a full-size former islander war canoe.
Back on the road, we come to my latest find. It's Cooranbong's suspension or historic 'swing bridge' (since 1934) off Freemans Drive. Today, the wobbly bridge is a local landmark, but maybe for many of us it's still a hidden place, until you get precise directions on how to find it.
Weekender was alerted to the site recently by Valentine author and bushwalker Greg Powell, who pointed out the nearby, flat 2.4-kilometre Sandy Creek Walk loop on part of the Avondale Estate for those who want to immerse themselves in nature.
The Cooranbong swing bridge is at the old Weet-Bix factory on Dora Creek. The bouncy walk over Dora Creek originally provided handy access for workers of the Sanitarium health food factory. Without the bridge, people had to either row or swim across the creek or face a long walk around.
At the back of Avondale College, the bridge over Dora Creek can be a little hard to find initially. Access is via a cul-de-sac after leaving Freemans Drive at Victory Street, just before a bridge under the M1.
The first swing bridge was designed and built in 1934 by Harry Tempest, a Sanitarium division manager. The bridge was said to be built to help teacher Oleta Leech, the wife of a Sanitarium scientist. Living south of the creek, she was terrified of deep water and local boats were often 'borrowed' by persons unknown.
Initially, the college faculty said using the bridge was out of bounds for its indoor students. This rule was relaxed in 1965. A tall eucalypt on the college side of the waterway also became known as the 'Billy-can tree'. Customers of the college dairy would hang their milk cans (to be filled up later) on nails hammered into the tree trunk.
The original swing bridge partially collapsed in the 1980s after surviving multiple floods. In 2006, it was feared the repaired bridge might be closed, but it has survived, a testimony to its workmanship, stout timbers and galvanised steel supports.
But while walking over the old, swaying suspension bridge can add a touch of adventure to any journey, since 2023, a wider, stronger, more stable, flood-free concrete bridge opened alongside, providing a more stress-free crossing.